Il Lombardia 2025

October 11, 2025 The final Monument of the season is upon us with the 119th edition of Il Lombardia, the race of the falling leaves. The course for 2025 starts in Como and finishes in Bergamo after 241KM and over 4,600M of climbing. Through KM0, the first 30KM gently roll North to the first and maybe most famous climb on route, the Madonna del Ghisallo, an 8.8KM ascent at an average of 4%. The course turns South off the descent into Bellagio to follow the lake front all the way down to Almenno San Bartolomeo to the base of the 7.5KM, 7.4% Roncola. There are about 7KM of false flat uphill roads after the summit of the Roncola before the proper descent to Sant'Omobono Terme. After the Berbenno, a 7KM long 5% climb, the riders go through Brembilla and Zogno to San Pellegrino Terme where the finale begins. The 12KM, 6% climb of the Passo della Crocetta starts with 89KM to go followed immediately by the 9KM 3% Zambla Alta. The next 22KM are all downhill to the bottom of the Passo di Ganda which is 9KM at 7% with the top being a bit steeper at nearly 9%. 25KM of descending leads into the final climb of the Colle Aperto at 7.4% for just 1.3KM. The top is 5KM from the finish in the heart of Bergamo. Serious moves started right from KM0. Quinn Simmons of Lidl-Trek sprinted for the first 300M which caused a split about 10 wheels back. Uno-X Mobility wanted to be in the break and tried to jump across but the front group was pushing hard to stay away. Riders kept shooting off and the front group swelled to fourteen riders with another handful in pursuit. UAE-XRG was left alone to keep the race under control but they managed to ride fast enough to stop the attacking and the break looked established. With 220KM to go, the fourteen leaders had built 90 seconds on the peloton with Lionel Taminiaux of Lotto, Alessandro De Marchi of Jayco AlUla, and Andreas Leknessund of Uno-X Mobility in between at 50 seconds. 5KM later, Taminiaux, De Marchi, and Leknessund realized that they couldn't get across and went back into the peloton. Oddly, Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe added a man to chase instead of letting UAE-XRG burn through resources. At the start of the Madonna del Ghisallo, the lead group had 2 minutes. The group consisted of Gal Glivar of Alpecin-Deceuninck, Pello Bilbao of Bahrain Victorious, Filippo Ganna, Lucas Hamilton and Victor Langellotti of Ineos, Thibault Guernalec of Arkéa-B&B Hotels, Walter Calzoni of Q36.5, Louis Vervaeke of Soudal Quickstep, Asbjørn Hellemose and Michael Matthews of Jayco AlUla, Bjorn Koerdt of Picnic-PostNL, Davide Bais of Polti-VisitMalta, Bart Lemmen of Visma-Lease a Bike, and Quinn Simmons. The bells were ringing at the top of the Madonna del Ghisallo to celebrate the race coming passed in what is one of the most emblematic scenes in professional cycling. The break arrived at the foot of the Roncola with 144.5KM to go with 3 minutes on the bunch still being led by UAE-XRG and Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe. Hellemose and Guernalec were dropped from the break on the Roncola and the remaining twelve riders went over the top with 2 minutes 30 seconds. UAE-XRG took the descent very quickly and gaps started to form further down the peloton. By the bottom, about 50 riders were in the front of the bunch with the remaining riders about 25 seconds back and frantically chasing before the start of the Berbenno climb. Ben Healy of EF-Education EasyPost, Paul Seixas of Decathlon AG2R, and Oscar Onley of Picnic-PostNL were among those stuck behind. At the start of the Berbenno, the chase was 15 seconds down and were forced to ride a bit harder on the climb to close the final few meters. Hamilton and Glivar were the next casualties to drop from the break. Simmons and Ganna were driving the break up the Berbenno but their lead was still dropping, down to 1 minute 45 seconds at the top with 107KM to race. On the last real flat road of the day before the Passo della Crocetta, the peloton slowed to feed and prepare themselves for the major tests to come. When the break started the Passo della Crocetta at 87KM to go after having passed through the beautiful town of San Pellegrino Terme, they had 3 minutes 10 seconds. Simmons attacked with 6KM to climb and the only ones to try and respond were Ganna, Vervaeke, Bilbao, and Matthews. Simmons reached the town of Dossena at the top of the Passo della Crocetta at 76KM to go with 45 seconds on the Ganna group and still 3 minutes 15 seconds on the peloton. Simmons was putting the whole race under pressure. His pace up the Passo della Crocetta and the Zambla Alta forced UAE-XRG to ride hard which gave some of the big names serious trouble such as Jai Hindley of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe and Ben Healy of EF-Education EasyPost who both were dropped on the Zambla Alta. Simmons took the tricky descent well and had 3 minutes at the bottom but Pavel Sivakov of UAE-XRG was going full on the 10KM valley road and had the gap down to 2 minutes 35 seconds with 40.5KM to go at the base of the formidable Passo di Ganda. In his last professional race, Rafal Majka of UAE-XRG set the pace on the early slopes. When he pulled off, Tadej Pogačar gave him a salute for a job well done and Jay Vine took over. The speed went way up and the bunch was trimmed down to 15 riders almost immediately. When Vine pulled over with just under 6KM to the top, the only riders still in the group were Isaac del Toro and Pogačar for UAE-XRG, Remco Evenepoel of Soudal Quickstep, Michael Storer of Tudor Pro Cycling, and Seixas. Pogačar attacked straight away and there was no reaction. 3KM later, Pogačar caught Simmons and the American road race champion tried to sit on the wheel for as long as possible but only could manage about 400M as the climb reached its steepest section near the top. In the chase, Seixas was dropped under Evenepoel's pressure, as was del Toro as they neared the top. Simmons was caught by Evenepoel 200M from the top but hung on and he started the descent with Evenepoel and Storer, 1 minute 15 seconds down on Pogačar with 30KM to go. Unfortunately for Simmons, Evenepoel accelerated on a kicker before the town of Selvino and was dropped from the first chase group. At the bottom with 15KM to go, Pogačar hit the flat roads leading to Bergamo under low, golden sunlight. Evenepoel dropped Storer on the descent and was able to match Pogačar on the run towards the Colle Aperto. Pogačar rode through throngs of screaming fans, over the cobbles and under a portico as he crested the Colle Aperto. Evenepoel did the same but had lost time and was nearly 2 minutes down. Pogačar spent the last 800M celebrating the victory which cements him as one of the greatest cyclists of all-time. He matches Fausto Coppi with 5 wins but is the first ever to win five straight editions of any Monument. He also became the only rider to be finish on the podium of all five Monuments in the same season. Evenepoel took yet another second place to Pogačar with Storer in third and Simmons in fourth who really was man of the match.